


Tormented Emanations

by MagicaLauren



Series: This Flawed system [3]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Timers, mentioned depression, mentioned dissasociaton, mentioned panic attacks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-16
Updated: 2016-07-09
Packaged: 2018-07-15 12:21:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7222153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagicaLauren/pseuds/MagicaLauren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kakashi's dreams are vivid. They rip him apart and leave him screaming, they'll leave him in moods for days. They speak of all the horrors he's committed.</p><p>Obito's emotions don't stop, the boil his blood until he thinks he's burning from the inside out. They leave his head pounding and his ready to burst. They remind him of the horrors he's lived through.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Kakashi's dreams are vivid. They rip him apart and leave him screaming, they'll leave him in moods for days. When he wakes his ears are ringing and with the taste of copper on his tongue.

When he was young Sakumo had taken him to doctors. Would worry, and comfort and not know what to do, what was even causing the problem. The diagnosis wasn't helpful. Kakashi was a genius, his mind runs ahead and he gets stuck in his thoughts; he can't get back out and his vivid imagination born from his genius traps him in dreams, nightmares, his mind.

By the time Kakashi's about to enter the Academy night terrors are common. His mask chokes down the screams on his lips and no one notices the black under his eyes.

The earliest dream he remembers is snapping teeth that leave him bleeding red in the dark corners of his mind. Growling and rumbles that echoed from nowhere and the impossibility of waking up. The worst one he remembered was right after his mother died. A light had guided him through his mind, carried him above the trees of Konoha and was smothered by the darkness. Kakashi woke to an ache in his chest, a loss, and tear tracks. Sakumo woke to his four year old son screaming with eyes blown wide open, standing stick straight in the living room, and never asked.

* * *

The nightmares reach a fevered pitch.

He's become a _real shinobi,_ but his mind still spits out terror. Kakashi hates this weakness, on a mission this couldn't happen and it won't be long before he'll be sent out. He doesn't sleep, not for days, slowly acclimating his body to less and less sleep. He draws up schedules to work out how his new sleeping habits would work. Kakashi knows that if he plays his cards right he'll find a way to avoid sleep even on the brink of collapsing.

Except it doesn't work, instead of even getting tired or becoming sloppy his mind only moves faster and faster and Kakashi finds it hard to keep up even in the day. He'll think of things for the barest second before his mind moves on, twitching at every sound. Kakashi can't keep his thoughts in order.

He tries to think of things longer, tries to work on hard equations to stretch out his thought process, to just _slow down._

When Sakumo goes to tuck him in for the night, only one week before the Academy's final he finds books far above Kakashi's level even with his genius. There's no way Kakashi would have been able to comprehend some of the scrolls.

That night Kakashi had passed out and the walls bled red, his watch bubbling crimson.

* * *

When Kakashi wakes up he doesn't really wake up at all. He's thirteen and Rin is gone, it's only been seven hours but he still feels like he is dripping in the dead bodies that he _doesn't even remember killing._

Three things happen after that mission, three immediate things.

The first is that the whispers become closer to screams. Kakashi has always known that those mired in their position hate him, envy the way he constantly progresses. Technically Kakashi is a jounin but to the chunnin it's 'not right' for him to give commands. It's become common for it to get quiet when entering rooms but now it gets louder as each man becomes bolder. If Kakashi cared more, if he was only a few years younger he would have stared them down and reprimanded speaking to a superior like that. Some of them still remember a mission gone bad, the start of the war. "Just like his father," they say dismissively, not bothering to lower their voice, not bothering to look at him. "Comrade-Killer-Kakashi," their kids tell each other. They think he can't hear, so their voices pitch loudly and giggle.

The second thing is that his dreams bleed into the day. He'll find his hand dripping in sin while shopping. When he visits the stone he sees Rin kneeling thumbing at her Soul Timer. Sees her eyes and knows, team seven never talked much about Soul Timers but Kakashi noticed the matching zeroes on his teammates watches.

His dreams wash over him in the morning. He'll find himself awake at barely dawn and recall every blistering moment that his mind conjured. One day he's drowning in sand, the next running from a figure or being strung up, choked and poisoned.

The third thing is that he's a little bit of a monster. Where he has lost some respect he's also gained some. A few of the younger jounin or chunins that had not risked enough in the war were horrified. A thirteen year old recovered from a battle field of bodies. Blood soaked his hair, and poured from every wound that he had inflicted. He doesn't even recall much past Rin but the recovery team had found piles of kiri-nin. They skid past him in the Kage building, stare at him and imagine Uzumaki red hair on him.

His dreams scare him, but not as much as he begins to scare himself.

* * *

His dream is fluid, floating through thoughts, colors, people. It's like he's drowned himself in an abyss of his mind and now he's just looking around at the broken pieces of memory.

Except now it's Obito, and Kakashi wants to run. He knows this dream has seen a thousand times, seen it dripping in red, in grief. But instead of an image forming around them, of a forest floor covered in rocks it's just Obito. They're sitting, like children on a swingset and together they toss their feet back and forth. Obito is so vibrant (just the way Kakashi knows him to be) that their surroundings look grey, he can't even see past Obito, not that he really wants to. Maybe they are on a building, it sort of feels like that. Kakashi doesn't really mind the gray abyss he's in anymore, right now he could probably lay on the edges of these geometric spires forever.

Next to him a black eyes are tilted up, as if star gazing. The lines of Obito's face, the clothing that looks so smooth, every tiny hair on Obito's arms. Kakashi can't breathe, his throat is choked and Kakashi can't breathe.

"It's odd," Obito states as mild as a summer day, "that you would be here, this place is my safe haven, Bakashi," and here Obito swung his hands off his lap to rest behind him. Leaning back and twisting to face Kakashi, he looked as if to be considering something. "My grandmother told me about my mom and dad, she said that the moment my mother's soul timer went off my mother cried tears of joy, that she sobbed as she introduced herself to my father. I don't really remember them all that well, but I think that they were extra meant to be together ya know?" Obito spread his arms wide, it was such an Obito gesture that Kakashi almost ran into them, almost buried his face into Obito's neck, almost. "Of all the people with soultimers," Obito whispered, "they were meant to be together because they completed each other."

Obito's disposition changed suddenly he curled up and his scars seemed to become an angry red again. "I think you're here and I think you complete me, I think maybe everything hurts and I think maybe you're in my safe place because you're my safe place."

Obito suddenly wasn't the preserved picture of peace Kakashi held in his eye. "Please don't leave," was all Kakashi could plea, broken words falling from his lips "Please," and Kakashi couldn't handle an Obito who wasn't Obito, _don't leave, don't leave_. The special fire, the only 'will of fire' that Kakashi had ever seen was being muffled by the hard look in Obito's eyes. An Obito that was Obito was leaving, an Obito that was Obito was being forgotten.

Kakashi paused, was his mind forgetting? This Obito was a conjuring of his mind to replace the perfect Obito that he'd left to die.

Oh, everything hurt.

* * *

He loses it, he loses his mind to bloody fists punched into walls.

Obito _completes him._

Obito who _had a broken soul timer._

Obito who is his _soul mate._

Obito who is _deaddeaddeaddeaddead._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> S/O to Colico for motivating me!! Also check the tags, I updated some stuff. I don't know a lot about mental illnesses but I kind of vented my own problems and then used some references so take care of yourselves!!

Sometimes Kakashi thinks he’s happy, that Minato-sensei has ushered in an era of peace. It’s in the spices that bloom against his tongue or the dusty sunlight that filters through his windows. Children will rush past his knees screaming, a couple discuss the differences between a nectarine and a peach. Sometimes Kakashi likes to sit, he finds the most central part of the market place and sits. Mothers will hurriedly push their children by, many will glare at him in scrutiny. And Kakashi sits.

 

In truth Kakashi hates people, they look down on him. When he was younger they would refute his genius, look down on his age but would as a society push him towards the lonely adulthood of a shinobi. When he presented himself as the blood soaked monster they had made him, they would again refute his genius, ‘no amount of smarts can lead to such a cold human’.

 

He sits and people skid past him and try not to look. He sits with the eye that makes him a demon, from the boy who was an angel. Blood red irises set into pale skin. “ _ Is he threatening us?” “Why does he sit there with the sharingan out,” “He could not be more obvious of his hatred if he sat there brandishing his weapon,” “All he does is sit there, I don’t think he’s a genius… a simpleton more like.”  _ and then they would giggle without a thought to their words.

 

Kakashi hates people but Obito wanted to see them, so he sits and hopes Obito can see.

* * *

 

There are night Kakashi doesn’t want Obito seeing, he hopes Rin’s ghost will never follow him and on these nights he knows he’s disappointed his father. 

 

It’s not really sensei’s fault, Minato-sensei knows that Kakashi is grieving, knows that he has no outlet. So he finds an outlet because Minato is the Hokage and problem solving is what he  _ does. _ It starts with a bird, the news of a mission. Once he had felt proud to be assigned a mission, exhilarated, now all he can think about is the blood. Once he would have been overjoyed and felt recognized to have become ANBU.

 

There are nights when he’ll come home and the blood on his hands is suddenly Rin’s or Obito’s or his Father’s- it’s everyone he’s failed.  There are nights when the dreams that have ruined him, that have attacked him from every side until he’s broken down, there are nights when those dreams are preferable to the reality he’ll sometimes cling to.

 

There are mornings too. The sun will glare out at him and his bones will scream. He won’t wake up with the heart pounding terror of being hunted or trapped. He’ll wake to tears on his face so cold that they sting at his cheeks. Mornings when the light of day is dulled, not blotted out by blood but dulled until it’s existence is no longer a comfort. 

 

It’s sad sometimes and Kakashi wonders if he was only happy to make everything feel worse.

* * *

 

Obito has lost everything. Sometimes he wants to scream at the world  _ What More can you take!  _

He just can’t stop his anger rests beneath his skin and sometimes prickes up to the surface, welling like droplets of blood. He can’t stop his hands they just shake and he wants to hurt  _ something, anything. _

 

He thinks of Rin’s hands, her soft skin. He misses her hands. 

 

He thinks of Rin, thinks about what Kiri did and he burns. His heart hurts so much that he stumbles. He collapses into bathrooms and can barely hold onto the sink. Obito doesn’t know what to do in those moments, there is so much emotion in him he can barely breath. Sometimes he’ll find himself with his hands over his mouth, spit soaks his fingers but he tries to hold it in, tries to choke down the screams and the emotions. He’ll shake and shake and it’s in his muscles, his bones, he feels so hot, like he’s on  _ fire _ and he’s choking on the smoke. Then he’ll see his hand, sees the scars and the blood. He just feels  _ so weak.  _

 

He hates feeling weak. 

 

Obito is just resents the world, what it did to him. He finds Kiri one day, he finds the village and plays with it’s little pawns, the little weak people. He wants to  _ incinerate _ them and their lives. 

 

Obito hates the world, and he can’t escape it. It doesn’t matter he’ll make the world pure again, a baptism through fire.

 

It’s when he sleeps, when he dreams of his perfect world that everything feels ok again. 

 

He finds himself in his mindscape on nights when he just  _ can’t think. _ On nights when he’s plotting and plotting but then plotting becomes all he’s done and he forgets how to think of anything else. On nights when he’s working towards a goal and can’t even remember.

 

Sometimes  _ he  _ is there. Sometimes Obito understands  _ him, his  _ sadness, other times he feels so, so bitter. Obito remembers the last time he truly saw  _ him, _ drowning in blood and sin. The clearing that has ruined Team Seven. 

 

Obito still isn’t sure if  _ he  _ is real or if he’s just gone truly insane. 

 

“Bakakashi,” Obito will banter and pretend nothing is wrong. “ _ You, _ ” Obito will spit when  _ everything _ is wrong. 

 

The nights when neither speak are the saddest days. Kakashi has a mask upon a mask upon  a mask, and what Obito once took as emotionless he now sees as another mask. He gets it now, Obito has built a wall upon a wall upon a wall. 

 

Kakashi always was the perfect shinobi and now Obito finds himself emulating him.

He wonders if he ever left a mark on Kakashi.

 

Obito finds himself losing control one day in the shower. One minute he’s staring at a crack in the wall and the next he’s thrown himself through the curtain and is shaking, his shoulders are hunched forward. No one comes, no one asks if he is alright and there is no one  _ to  _ ask him. Something must be wrong with him.

 

He drowns himself in alcohol, a dark corner in a bright bar. Civilian flit around him, acting as if they have no problem, but Obito knows the truth, they are all suffering. He is bitter because he can no longer pretend to smile. 

 

When he wakes to towering gray spires and gray hair Obito pretty much feels prepared to die. Except the boy isn’t looking at him, or much of anything, just sitting hunched over on the edge of one of the spires. How can a figment be quite so sad? 

 

There has always been an age difference between them but Kakashi is so much bigger than him, so unattainable, that Obito can’t think of him as anything but an equal. Except right now, standing three feet away from shoulders hunched forward and a tiredness that goes beyond Kakashi’s years, Obito can’t help but remember ‘ _ My god, he’s a kid’  _ and it’s so easy to remember what it is he’s fighting for. 

 

Obito’s hands are disfigured and blood stained, not meant for comfort. Kakashi’s mind is cold and bloodstained, not meant for morality. Obito’s dreams are for a perfect world but the one they are used to is one of shinobi. He cannot comfort Kakashi because there is no comfort to give, but he understands the quiet tiredness is his eyes. 

 

He sits beside Kakashi an empty space between them that lets Obito pretend that they are not the same, a space so that Obito can remove himself from sentimentality. It’s another silent night full of regrets, he wants to ask Kakashi what he’s done, what the village has made him do, but the silence is endless. He wants to fill up this empty space, he wants to smile but Obito also wants to stay here forever, he also wants to never speak again.

 

Together they sit, looking across the horizon of empty gray, close enough to feel each other and far enough to not feel the heat. They are so still that sometimes his ears will buzz, he feels swallowed by the silence. The rustle of fabric turns his head, attention drawn. 

 

Kakashi no longer looks as tired, although there is another look in his eyes, one of consideration or maybe something else. He watches Kakashi pull one leg up over the edge and sit it on the edge, then feeling the weight of Obito’s eyes, turns to stare back at him. They just look at each other, and the rest of Kakashi’s features become a background to his eyes. 

 

He’s not sure how long he stares into Kakashi’s eyes, or even why he’s staring when he can’t even read them anymore. Slowly they both turn their eyes away, although Obito’s eyes keep to Kakashi’s form.

 

“I want you to come back,” Kakashi says, his voice is raw from unuse and loud against the quiet, even as he speaks quietly. Obito is shocked, Kakashi hates him, finds him useless and annoying, what right does he have? And suddenly Obito is angry again, he is seething and his head is pounding. “Come back,” Kakashi says but why should he? 

 

And suddenly he’s moving against Kakashi, shoving him down against the cold smoothness of the floor. His forearm presses against the bob of Kakashi’s throat and Kakashi chokes a bit, flecks of spit rising up. He straddles Kakashi and if he had a weapon he would have drawn blood. Kakashi struggles but Obito is older and stronger. 

 

It’s just another reminder that this Kakashi is fake,  _ his _ Kakashi would’ve thrown him off and then scoffed at him. 

 

Obito laughs suddenly, his throat is dry and his ribs begin to hurt, his stomach clenches and his chest screams for air but he’s laughing so hard. It’s a deep laugh full of anything but humor and for a second Obito can hear himself, he sounds absolutely insane, and Obito just laughs harder because  _ he is.  _

 

And then he’s crying and he isn’t about to kill Kakashi but clinging to him, face pressed against his jounin flak. The rough edges prick his skin and the buttons push at his cheek bones but Obito can’t find it in him to let go. He grasps around Kakashi, trying to control his breathing but with every breath he finds himself choking. 

 

Kakashi is smaller than Obito but he fills up his arms. Obito can’t even feel his body heat through the boy’s uniform and he doesn’t feel any better, clinging pathetically but he doesn’t want to leave. Kakashi is clearly uncomfortable, his arms don’t wrap around Obito, he doesn’t offer reassurances and Obito can’t see his face but it’s likely he’s staring upwards. Obito just can’t let go.

 

Obito’s sobs subside but he stays straddled above Kakashi, clutching him, even as Kakashi stays perfectly still. It’s an intimate position but Kakashi is so emotionally removed, and Obito so different from who he once was that they feel more like strangers across a crowd.

 

Obito can’t stand it, he hates himself, hates himself so bad that he’s burning and before he can stop himself he’s speaking, blurting out his feelings because who else would he tell and it just bubbles to his lips without thought- “Have you ever felt so much that you thought you might burn?”

 

Kakashi is no longer still, he tenses and Obito almost wishes he had laid lifeless forever.  He’s wearing mask upon mask upon mask and even with the sharingan Obito wouldn’t be able to break the cool facade. They’re too different, Obito was never aloof, he doesn’t understand what the slight twitch in Kakashi’s brow means.

 

“Yeah,” Kakashi says and Obito is so surprised his body jolts for a second, muscles clenching. They're both silent again, but Obito can see Kakashi’s eyes wander around their surroundings, Obito isn’t sure what it means, surely he’s not embarrassed, that would be  _ too _ emotional for Kakashi.

 

“Have you ever been so empty you thought you might be hollow?” Kakashi’s question mirrors his own, voice cracking between speaking and whispering. Obito thinks, he thinks of the nights after he’s broken down that he spends staring at the wall, or watching the shower head rain down. He thinks of villagers he’s killed without thought or reason, without emotion. 

 

“Yeah.”

 

And the admittance hurts, that he has come to be  _ this, this person.  _ He’ll remember his dream to help the world and the rush every time another part of his plan falls into place, but then it’s back to the emptiness, back to being overwhelmed by the feeling that  _ he just can’t win. _ The only person he talks to is Zetsu, and he hates Zetsu, he can’t tell Zetsu how he thinks or feels. 

 

He’s so angry in his heart but never in his mind. 

 

He pulls off of Kakashi, standing only to fall back to his knees. His shoulders weigh him down, hunching forward. Next to him he can sense Kakashi pulling himself up onto his elbow. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, he was supposed to find out that Rin really  _ was _ his soulmate, he was going to become Hokage and the village children would look up to him. Kakashi would acknowledge him and sensei would pass on his hat with pride. How did he get here?

 

“Please,” Kakashi whispers, voice muffled further from behind his mask and when Obito turns he finds himself, last year, standing in a blood soaked clearing. “Please,” Kakashi begs, hand sliding forward along the ground “you understand, you understand,” he repeats to himself, or maybe to Obito. “Please, you understand, you have to help me,” and Obito doesn’t understand, what happened? Kakashi had been upset earlier, but for him to be half on the floor and half reaching toward him, something must have happened. 

 

“Please, you have to help me,” Kakashi pleads, voice broken, no tears have been shed but Obito can hear Kakashi crying, it’s in his voice.    
  


Obito can’t help but flinch, it’s his goal isn’t it? To fix the world, to help people like this boy in front of him, to create the perfect world? But it’s all a lie, how was he he supposed to fix the world when he couldn’t even fix himself. Obito hates himself, hates hates hates himself, he’s such a peice of shit, it twistes at his gut a curls his fingers. He’s scared and broken and ugly and he can’t fix the world. Kakashi wants him to help him? What a joke.

 

“Please make me feel better, you understand, you can help,” Kakashi is muttering and he looks as crazy as Obito feels. 

 

Obito’s nothing but a fuck up, he broke his own soul timer. Has made Rin cry. 

 

“I can’t, I can’t,” he finds himself repeating to Kakashi, their mantras of desperation clashing. 

 

“Please, it has to be you,” Kakashi is insisting and Obito is scared he might cry, he doesn’t think he could watch cool, aloof Kakashi cry, it would just be proof how far gone this world is. “Please,” Kakashi keeps saying, ignoring Obito’s own desperate pleas to understand that “I can’t,” and then ringing in the silence-

 

“Please you’re my soulmate.”

It’s so quiet after the buzz of distress that had just filled the air. 

 

It’s another reminder. This Kakashi isn’t real. This Kakashi  _ wants  _ him,  _ acknowledges  _ him. It’s so fake Obito wants to  _ cackle. _

 

The Kamui is sucking him back through, twisting just like this pathetic excuse of a mind he has. Wow, he is  _ insane.  _ Obito’s so much farther gone than he had originally realized. 

 

_ You’re so far away  _ he hears Kakashi scream,  _ come back _ but why should he? He can’t fix this broken piece of his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own/ profit from Naruto  
> A/N:  
> 1.Ok so I briefly talked about this in Home At the Heart but I was planning on going more in depth and I think this series is the one to talk about it on. So basically I reread some of my old IwaOi fanfictions and hated them because they seemed… bad. Anyway I struggled to write again and I hesitated on posting this chapter until my lovely friend said to go for it because what is the worst that can happen? So I was thinking about getting a beta reader? My Dad always says a good reader is a good editor but I basically just end up hating what I write. So if anyone is interested message me or comment? I kind of just want to go over certain parts and making sure I’m in character. Like Kakashi's pov at the beginning of this chapter I think should be moved to the last chapter... Idk
> 
> 2.I’ve never posted my tumblr, but come talk to me? Give me headcanons maybe? Don’t feel nervous because you’re a loser because I assure you I am worse. Right here >>> http://practically-magically.tumblr.com/

**Author's Note:**

> A/n: Guess who has no motivation, is a terrible writer and made a series about soulmates that stopped being about soulmates? This writer. Anyway hopefully that provoked some emotions from you dear reader, but I'm just trying to get back into the things I'm into… so yeah. Drop a comment, tell me what I should write (with or outside of this series) help me get back into writing! Or don't!


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